Old bench/table with a distinctive industrial oil smell

[C Timber]

I have recently come by an old bench / table (about 10ft long), perhaps old style school or Office furniture. It has obviously spent some time in an automotive workshop or something similar due to the damage of the worktop - burn marks, cuts, hammer marks etc and oil smell and discolourisation. It has been restored at some point and appears rather rustic, which I like, however the oil smell is a bit too much to handle in the house. I've washed it down, though I'm sure the oil is in the wood which is varished - I think.

I'm thinking of sanding it back to remove the varnish and then oil it with tung, tung/orange or danish oil. Would this be suitable? Which would be better? Would the penetration cover the automotive oil smell? Would the new oil react with the old oil? Or perhaps something else to seal the wood??

I'd be very grateful for some guidance....

Cheers.

[Master Splinter]

My take on it would be to remove the varnish (maybe with strippers if you are trying to retain the burns, dents and dings patina...methylene chloride/citrus strippers might also help with the oil smell) and then use a mix of kerosene and bentonite clay kitty litter (preferably crushed to a fine powder) as a wicking media and solvent to try to pull some of the offending oil (possibly transmission oil as that has a distinctive smell) out of the timber.

Saturate the top with kero, leave for a few minutes, then dump 5-10mm of crushed bentonite clay on top to pull the kero out of the timber, hopefully taking some oil with it. This will also work better if you leave the top in sunlight to warm it all up. Give it a few days, then sweep the bentonite off. I'd go for a repeat if it seems to be working well.

If you like the surface discolouration, take a few photos of how it looks now, and if the cleaning lightens the timber up too much, you should be able to use wood stains to selectively age it back to a more 'used industrial' finish.

I'd be very tempted to go the tung oil finish path simply because I like the idea of giving it a few deodorising cycles with orange oil first!

[BobL]

Pure mineral oils alone don't smell that much so the smell is almost certainly some of the sulphur compounds added to oils and these a very difficult to reduce to the levels below which our noses can detect them.

Master splinters method with bentonite is worth a go.
If that doesn't work you might need to go for something more aggressive like a long (weeks) soak in a caustic bath to remove enough of the oil. This will have the effect of stripping the varnish and bleaching the timber so it look a bit more weathered than it otherwise would. Colour can be added back in later if so desired